The White Dove (Holubice) [1960] torrent

In Vláčil’s parable-like debut feature, a wheelchair-bound boy in Prague shoots a homing pigeon for target practice, then, chided by his artist neighbor, nurses the bird back to health. Meanwhile, a girl on the Baltic coast awaits her pet’s return. Intensely imagistic, the nearly dialogue-free film includes a thrilling action sequence staged between the recovering pigeon and a neighborhood cat. Jan Čuříks’s stunning black-and-white cinematography favors high-contrast compositions between sea and sand, cityscape and sky. One of the key films in the emerging cinematic sensibility of the 1960s that would coalesce into the Czech New Wave by the decade’s end. –AFI